Vice President Kamala Harris is under fire for telling a bold-faced lie about Florida’s education system. Harris claimed that Florida students will learn about the “benefits of slavery” in a puzzling statement.
Harris first repeated the common leftist talking point that conservatives are “banning books” across the nation, failing to mention that said books often contain pornographic or ideological extremist content. “And while they do this – check it out, they push forward revisionist history,” she declared.
“Just yesterday in the state of Florida, they decided middle school students will be taught enslaved people benefited from slavery,” Harris continued, generating angry grumbles from the crowd. “They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us and we will not stand for it!”
The vice-president and other left-wing activist and entities have pounced on a single sentence in the Florida State Board of Education’s new standards that reads, “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit,” according to a 216-page document. Critics have also taken issue with lesson plans that mention racially motivated violence from Black Americans that took place during race incidents that are almost universally portrayed as one-sided, including the 1921 Tulsa race riots.
A spokesperson for the Florida Board of Education defended the guidelines in a statement to NBC News, stating that Florida aims to provide “comprehensive and rigorous instruction on African American History,” adding that the board proudly stands behind the standards.
“The intent of this particular benchmark clarification is to show that some slaves developed highly specialized trades from which they benefitted. This is factual and well documented,” the statement continued. “Some examples include: blacksmiths like Ned Cobb, Henry Blair, Lewis Latimer and John Henry; shoemakers like James Forten, Paul Cuffe and Betty Washington Lewis; fishing and shipping industry workers like Jupiter Hammon, John Chavis, William Whipper and Crispus Attucks; tailors like Elizabeth Keckley, James Thomas and Marietta Carter; and teachers like Betsey Stockton and Booker T. Washington.”